Double Standard...

[mr_pikachu]

Okay, I'm sure all of us probably know that in the dubbed version of Pokemon that shows in most countries other than Japan, guns are strictly prohibited. Totally not allowed. Heck, I think they probably even edit out references to them.

So why aren't attacks like "Water Gun" and "Bullet Seed" edited? It seems odd to me that they would leave those in there without even thinking about it, but will edit out a gun even when no one gets shot by it. (They edited out the entire episode in the Safari Zone, for instance, leaving a gaping plothole in the process. And I think that they probably took it out of that Growlithe police-training episode, too.)

So, what do you think about this apparant double standard in the dubbing of Pokemon?

[Indiana Blastoise]

I personally don't see any reason why the guns should be edited out in the first place. We have these cute little animals beating the crud out of each other, but bring in violence against a human, using a human weapon, then it goes right out the door.
To answer your question, I feel that the dubbers probably don't pay a whole lot of attention to the actual names of the attacks, as sometimes they completely screw up attacks names (I can recall a few Watergun, Hydropump errors with Squirtle early on in the series). So in all honesty I just don't think it ever occured to them that these names may contain some references to the same things they are editing out.

[Blackjack Gabbiani]

Because everyone knows a water gun is a harmless childs toy.

Bullet Seed is an oddity, though.

Now, I can see some things, but why WHY didn't they dub the Warden's gun to be a tranquilizer? That would have been nice and G-rated, we could have had the episode, and the soccer moms wouldn't have rioted until next episode! (although from what I understand, they *did* dub the episode, but it was WB that wouldn't let them air it. Which makes no sense, as this is the network that started with things like Elmer Fudd shooting Daffy Duck's beak off...)

[Heald]

...yeah, but Daffy was a duck, not a human. If Elmer Fudd had been shooting another human, it would not be on.

I love how Team Rocket are able to use bombs, robots, toxic attacks (biological warfare), tanks, missiles but not guns. Oh, and that James dresses up as a girl most of the time.

[Chikoo]

Try renaming the attack Bullet Seed and show us what you can come up with. I wanna see some parents bitching about Bullet Seed and Water Gun already..

[mr_pikachu]

How about "Seed Spray"? Would that work?

Maybe Zap Cannon should be included in this thread... after all, a "cannon" is a weapon... and Pin Missile...

I never knew that the episode actually was dubbed. Stupid, stupid WB! I never got to see the Tauros episode... *sob*

And good point about the violence against animals being allowed. I'd forgotten about Elmer Fudd and Daffy... that's a very good point. I suppose they could argue that, "In this day of violence, we cannot risk airing such acts of brutality." But still, it doesn't quite make sense...

[Chikoo]

Seed Spray.
How bout Seed Bazooka? 8) Or perhaps Rapid Seed. I dunno..

[mr_pikachu]

That brings up another questionable attack: Octazooka...

You know, they're probably not changing them in the dub because they just can't. If you think about it, the makers of the Pokemon games get the games out before the anime is released, usually. (At least this last time, with RS...) That means that they are the ones who probably decide on the translated attack names. I guess that 4Kids just has to follow those names, since it'd be really confusing to hear an attack on the anime that was never in the games (and vice-versa).


EDIT: And as for changing Bullet Seed, how about Seed Spit? I dunno, I'm just brainstorming...

[Dogasu]

The attack names in the anime are determined by the attack names in the video games. Though 4Kids has had anime-video game consistency problems before (Lorelei/Prima, for example), they usually try to stick to the video games as much as possible.

Therefore, any censorship involving the words "gun" and "bullets" would have been taken care of in the video games.

[Razola]

I look forward to the DVD editions where Ash tells Squirtle to use Water Walkie-Talkie.

[Adamant]

Well, the Rockman.exe dub did have some changes to a lot of stuff from the video games.

Some of them were for pretty stupid reasons too. "OMG ColoredMan is racist, let's change it to WackoMan" (ColoredMan (or ColorMan is the english games, due to space issues) is a huge fat neon colored clown who is about as racist as Colonel Yellow from Dragonball (who is a tiger), for those who didn't know.)

[Water Pokemon Master]

If you bring out a real gun into the show, one that looks like it is highly available (ever seen one of those guns TR has that shoots out nets? - I don't think so), then kids could get some ideas. Water Gun and Bullet Seeds are just names, you don't even really think about their meanings in depth when you say them or hear them. Besides, a kid isn't going to go "Oh my gosh, they said water gun, I am going to go get a gun and shoot my neighbor."

[Zak]

Water Gun: Blackie hit the nail on the head.

Bullet Seed: If you knew the ORIGINAL Japanese name for that attack, you'd think Bullet Seed would sound calm to the "soccer moms". It was "Seed Machine Gun".


~Zak